Friday, February 9, 2024

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• Promoting the power of partnership
• Bake Your Research: Highlights from the Water Institute's inaugural competition
• St. Jerome's presents the Lectures in Catholic Experience: Beyond Burnout Culture
• Have a Fantastic Day tomorrow and other notes

Promoting the power of partnership

By Matthew King.

The Centre for WIL supports multiple pathways for students to explore work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences beyond co-op. Central to supporting students through those multiple pathways is providing innovative ways to help students. Recently, this innovation included collaborating with industry partners to redevelop an existing course while ensuring a quality WIL approach.

The collaborative project to redevelop WIL 601, a course for graduate students, involved multiple partners with each taking on a role that aligned with their expertise:

• The Centre for WIL developed the course.
• The Centre for Career Development authored the course.
• Industry partners provided industry insights and included:
  • Vidyard - a video technology company founded by a Waterloo alum.
  • Manulife - an international financial services group.
  • D2L - a global online learning software provider led by a Waterloo alum.
• Graduate students provided valuable insight throughout the process.

In alignment with Waterloo’s goals of graduate-level work-integrated learning (WIL), WIL 601 provides students with the tools, strategies and resources to effectively prepare for their upcoming WIL experiences and future career endeavours after graduation. As part of the course, students reflect on their career goals and identify opportunities to work towards those goals. They also articulate the skills and knowledge they are demonstrating in their graduate experiences, and explore workplace preparation strategies to support their success.

“Creating WIL courses alongside industry and community partners enhances the learning experience for our students,” says Natalie Clifford, associate director, the Centre for WIL. “For the development of WIL 601, we knew that collaborating with industry partners to integrate an authentic voice that speaks to the value of lifelong learning practices would be an overall value-add and motivator for our graduate students as they set their sights on their careers.”

WIL 601 includes 10 modules for students to complete. Each of the industry partners in the project—Vidyard, Manulife and D2L—had representatives review a portion of the modules and provide insights to the course developers.

“The partners helped to emphasize the importance of course content by providing tangible examples of what actions students could take,” says Monica Vesely, lead work-integrated learning designer, Centre for WIL. “For example, in the preparing for an interview section, industry tips help guide students to be sure to describe what their research is about before diving into their prepared points. This will make the discussion easier to follow and will drive some great follow-up questions.”

Read more about the industry partnership on the Centre for WIL website.

Bake Your Research: Highlights from the Water Institute's inaugural competition

A message from the Water Institute.

Our first annual Bake Your Research competition was a slice!

The Water Institute and the Society of the Water Institute Graduate Students (SWIGS) were pleased to host the inaugural Bake Your Research competition on January 15. The culinary competition put out a call to bake or cook an edible masterpiece that visually portrays water research happening at the University of Waterloo.

Thanks to our guest judges Richard Cramm, Chef, University Club and Mark Meinzinger, Catering Chef, Fed Hall, who elevated the competition to Food Network level, judging the edible masterpieces on presentation, texture and taste. Entries in the competition far surpassed our expectations for creativity and level of detail.

More importantly, it was a great team building, networking and social gathering which left lasting cake crumbs throughout the entire Water Institute.

Congratulations to professor Maria Strack’s Wetland Soils and Greenhouse Gas Exchange Lab who received first place for their stunning peatland chocolate cake illustrating a peatland in an undisturbed state contrasted with a range of disturbances and restoration methods.

In second place, professors Helen Jarvie and Merrin Macrae’s Biogeochemistry Lab for a cake that depicted various land uses in the Grand River Watershed and Tonya DelSontro’s AquaGHG Lab who took third place for their stratified lake creation.

We hope you had as much fun as we did!

St. Jerome's presents the Lectures in Catholic Experience: Beyond Burnout Culture

A message from St. Jerome's University.

On February 29, St. Jerome's University will welcome Dr. Jonathan Malesic, who will speak about his book, The End of Burnout: Why work drains us and how to build better lives. Inspiration for his book came from personal reflection and lived experience, and when his expectations of work and the reality of work didn't align, it ultimately led to his struggle with professional burnout.

During an interview with NPR's Michel Martin, Dr. Malesic stated, "I see burnout as the result of being stretched across this gap between your ideals for work and the reality of your job. And so my ideals for being a college professor were sky-high. I imagined it as the life of the mind - you know, the tweed-wearing professor asking questions about the meaning of life. And I literally did that. I truly asked students those kinds of questions. But - and at times, the reality lived up to those ideals, but oftentimes, it didn't. You know, it's still just a job, and the students were often not as excited about these questions as I was. But in addition, you know, there are still boring meetings. There's still paperwork. And it did seem like I wasn't really doing the work that I imagined I would be doing all those years ago. And so it was a real combination of factors, both internal and external, that I think caused my burnout there.”

Dr. Jonathan Malesic will explore what this means, how we can make tangible changes to improve our working lives, and the lessons from what Benedictine monks and religious orders can teach us about incorporating these ideals into our lives.

“Since their founding in 1982, the St. Jerome’s University Lectures in Catholic Experience have sought to bring experts on the most pressing issues of the time to speak not just to academics but to the broader community. Dr. Malesic’s work on the often used but under-theorized concept of “burnout” should be of interest to many in the university context and beyond who worry about the well-being of their students, employees, colleagues or themselves,” added Carol Ann MacGregor, vice president academic and dean.

This lecture is on February 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the Notre Dame Chapel at St. Jerome's University. The event will be live-streamed for people who cannot attend in person. Please register for the event, as space in the Notre Dame Chapel is limited.

Have a Fantastic Day tomorrow and other notes

Tomorrow is Fantastic Alumni, Staff, Faculty and Retiree Day 2024 in the Physical Activities Complex. Come cheer on the Waterloo Warriors men’s and women’s basketball teams and join in a variety of family-friendly activities.

The Climate Leaders’ program has issued a Call for Proposals for the Student Climate Con 2024 which will be taking place on Saturday March 16. The convention is being organized to showcase the contributions of students tackling climate change in all forms across all disciplines and faculties. The deadline for proposal submissions is Friday, February 9.

The Library is excited to celebrate Love Data Week from Monday, February 12 to Friday, February 16 with a series of workshops and events. An international initiative, Love Data Week is an opportunity to learn about data, research data management best practices and how to create a better, more inclusive world through data. Full details and event registration are available on the Library's events listing page. 

Information Systems & Technology (IST) has published the latest entry in the Atlassian blog series entitled "Atlassian updates: Coming soon in Jira Software."

Finally, a reminder to join the University of Waterloo for Inspiring Black Flourishing in Waterloo Region and Beyond, a free community talk and discussion on Tuesday, February 13 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Be inspired by University of Waterloo students, alumni and staff who are engaged in local and international community initiatives that aim to address barriers to Black flourishing or create opportunities for it.  This event takes place at Kitchener Public Library at 85 Queen Street North in Kitchener and is held in partnership with the Kitchener Public Library and hosted by CBC Kitchener-Waterloo.